Yinka Shonibare CBE is pleased to be presenting his most recent body of work, Decolonised Structures at Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present. This new series recreates seven public statues of British imperialists that currently shape the cityscape and very fabric of London.
The figures are stripped of the authority of bronze and marble and instead shrouded in the colonial legacy of Dutch wax patterns. Yinka Shonibare CBE thus reveals the ties between places and powers through this fabric design, which originated in Indonesia, mass-produced by the Dutch and sold to Britain’s West African colonies. By decontextualising these monuments, Shonibare highlights the political realities that gave rise to them and demonstrates how their presence in public spaces evokes pressing discussions around Britain’s relationship with its past and the institutional racism it conceived.
SB15 was conceived by the late Okwui Enwezor and curated by Hoor Al Qasimi. Themes surrounding postcolonial subjectivity, the body as a repository of memories, processes of creolisation, hybridisation and the restitution of objects are explored throughout the Biennial. Shonibare’s works are on view at the Old Al Diwan Al Amiri.